TV Guide has sized up the three finalists. They give their take on each contestant for their advantages and disadvantages leading up to tonight’s finale on Dancing With The Stars and also what to watch for. Below is take about Melissa….

MELISSA RYCROFT
For Her: Effortless ability, a drama-free, fun partnership with Tony Dovolani and never having won before. The Season 8 third-place finisher was pegged for an early exit by many, given who she was up against, but she’s stealthily defied the odds and beat out two former champs in the semifinals to get another crack at the Mirrorball trophy.
Needs to work on: Her connection with Dovolani. Footwork-wise, Rycroft can rival Johnson, but she tends to dance within herself, and her hold with Dovolani suffers for it. Get tighter and dance bigger.
Why she might win: She’s never won before. If fans want to spread the wealth, they’ll go for these guys. The toothy twosome’s carefree relationship is delightful, and frankly, Dovolani deserves to win one after enduring Kate Gosselin and continuously being saddled with non-contenders. They’ve also got momentum on their side after winning the swing marathon and getting perfect 30s the past two weeks. Though Johnson has the highest cumulative score and season average, Rycroft has the most 30s.
Watch out for: How Dovolani’s back holds up. He pulled his back just last week and was stiff in the semifinals. If he does recover fully, can he put together a winning routine for what has been his Achilles’ heel: the freestyle?

You can read what TV Guide has to say on Shawn and Kelly here. I have to say they pretty much pegged it. What do you think?

Also, last year’s Dancing With The Stars champ, Donald Driver, has also analyzed the finale. You can read his views at the LA Times. He’s not convinced the winner will be Shawn Johnson. Below is more including his thoughts on fellow football player and friend, Emmitt Smith, being eliminated.

Q: Are you surprised that Emmitt Smith was eliminated just before the finals? Most people had him favored to win.
I was a bit surprised, but that’s the nature of the competition. An all-star was going to get sent home, it just happened to be him. I’m sure he’s disappointed, but at the end of the day he’s still a “Dancing With the Stars” champion. He still gets to go home and look at that mirror ball trophy he won in season three.

Q: Who do you think will win?
I have heard a lot of people say Shawn [Johnson], but like you said, Emmitt was the favorite before that and now he’s no longer in the competition. I may just have to weigh in during the show tonight or tomorrow from my Twitter account (@Donald_Driver80) with my final prediction after the dances tonight!

Stay tuned. Donald will give his thoughts on the dancing tonight on Good Morning America tomorrow.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

Isn’t this a great take of Derek Hough and Shirley Ballas? The two were seen shopping out and about Hollywood yesterday. Shirley wrote a little about it at her Facebook page. She also commented about seeing rehearsals yesterday and described it as “simply wow”. Picture above is courtesy of the Daily Mail. You can see loads of more pics and updates about Derek at Pure Derek Hough including a story about him helping a homeless man. Are we surprised knowing how kind hearted he is?!! Here’s to Team Shawnough tonight!

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

People.com has just a little teaser on Dancing With The Stars tonight. It has quotes from Tony, Shawn, and Kelly for how they are feeing on the finale….

“For me, winning the trophy would be everything,” he says.

The women, who reached the finals last Tuesday after Apolo Ohno and Emmitt Smith were sent home, are vying in a race that features two former champs.

Johnson, who won in season 8, says she’s “so excited” to go for the trophy again, while Monaco, the show’s first winner back in 2005, is ready for battle. She notes she’s one of five girls in her family and “can step in the ring” with anyone.

“I embrace girl power!” she says. “So I think it’s awesome. I’m honored to be up there with two amazing women.”

You can read the full article at People.com. Also, take a look at the picture in this tweet. It has a picture from camera blocking yesterday….

You can also watch their Good Morning America interviews HERE. Kelly and Val talk of their bond. No, it’s now a showmance, but, it’s genuine. He’s so thankful for what Kelly has done for him this season. Melissa and Tony talk of the competition. It’s no time to “be a sissy”. Shawn says this finals are intense. Derek jokes it’s a “cat fight” between the three women.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

Courtney and I were much too lazy to worry about screencaps and gifs this week, so you’ll have to live without them. Well, I was too lazy. Courtney’s actually been sick. Boo. Anyway, on with the show.

The Award for a Metaphor FAIL (a.k.a The Master of the Mixed Metaphor Award): Len Goodman for “That dynamite was fantastic!!” Referring to Shawn and Derek’s Bhangra

Heidi: Um, say what?? And yes, I tried to mix the metaphor in the Award title too, just in case you were wondering. Anyway, Len really let loose and lost control. He was freakin’ giddy giving them that 10 and then his whole “SHUT UP! Shut the front door and call me Mary..” thing was pretty funny. And confusing. Is this an English thing??

Courtney: Hehe…you can definitely tell when Len goes off-script, because he makes absolutely no sense. No cheesy “more bounce for the ounce!” or “what was on the label wasn’t in the tin” organized comments – it’s like he gets Tourette’s Syndrome when he actually likes a dance

The Award for Best Audience Wrangling/Stage Direction: Tom Bergeron for telling the audience members in front of him “You can stop clapping, this isn’t exciting” and then telling them to keep clapping when something was good.

Heidi: Geez, the muppets could take some lessons from Tom. “How to chastise an Audience Member in a humorous way.” I wonder what he would have done if he had seen the chick in the short skirt bent over last week? “Hey, honey, it’s a bit early for the moon in LA.”

Courtney: I have to wonder if Tom gets as fed up with the nonsense of the show as we do sometimes Read more..

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Going into the Dancing With The Stars All Star Finale is a tight one at that. The odds makers at Sports Bovada, have placed their final bets. It’s been an interesting season as they’ve seemed to nail who is going to finish ‘last’ every week. Then again, all season we’ve seen them placing Emmitt Smith at the top to win and well, as you know, he was eliminated last week. So, below are the odds as of right now for who will win the Dancing With The Stars All Stars. I’m in agreement with them this time. I think this is exactly how it will play out….

Be sure to let us know what you think and how you would place the couples. Let’s get Heidi and Court’s thoughts on the odds too:

Courtney: No arguments here – I still think it’s going to be Shawn’s to lose, with Melissa & Kelly a distant 2nd & 3rd. I have a feeling Shawn & Melissa will end up pretty close in scores (and both will likely be near-perfect, unless Tony really whiffs this freestyle), and Kelly will likely trail by 3-5 points. I’m fully expecting the judges to drop the hammer on Kelly, since I don’t think they were expecting her to last through last week’s elim. When it comes down to the winner, though, I’m fine with either Melissa or Shawn winning – although I think overall, Shawn & Derek have been the most creative, the best dancers, and the best entertainers this season.

Heidi: I agree that’s the order they SHOULD be in, but I don’t think it’s a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination. And these odds guys with the 1/3 appear to think it is a slam dunk. If Melissa gets too far ahead in points – like, say, three – because of Shawn and Derek getting docked again for their quickstep, I think it’s a real horse race. I think Melissa could win this – but her routines will have to be spectacular, and by that I don’t mean all lifts. That said, I’m not convinced at all that the judges will dock Shawn and Derek for the quickstep again. They just don’t have a history of doing that. They didn’t for Mark and Chelsea and I’m sure there are others – probably all on Derek and Mark, since those two are the ones who take risks. They tend to loosen up on their own issues in the finale. Not to mention that I have this sneaking suspicion that Derek and Shawn had the quickstep picked FOR them, as did the others. In any case, Shawn and Derek suffer from the “sure thing” syndrome and I hope their fans realize this. Their biggest risk is that people don’t vote because they assume she’s going to win. That’s the price of creating AMAZING dances all season long. Not to mention that the producers edits of the packages are going to go OVERBOARD on the sob stories of “Tony’s never won…” and “Melissa and Kelly are such underdogs…” blah blah blah. Unfortunately, that crap works on the average Joe.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

Isn’t this a fun group shot of some of our couples with co-host Brooke Burke? The Dancing With The Stars Make-Up crew has more photos of the couples and cast from “behind the scenes” of week 9. Be sure to see them all here. A MUST SEE!

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

Okay, let’s see if I understand this correctly: there is either a “dance your favorite” or “judges choice” (and judging by Shawn’s choice I’m going to go with favorite) and a freestyle (supersized, whatever the hell that means) on Monday night. Then on Tuesday they do an instant dance of a style (and song) to be picked on Monday night.

Looks to me like Derek and Shawn are playing this the same way they have played all season – risky. Good for them. Go big or go home. It will be hard for the other two couples to be remembered after seeing that Quickstep again. Melissa’s choice is also somewhat risky, considering I don’t think she’s really fixed the issues that she’s always had – her legs. We’ll see how the judges score – both couples are putting them to the test, IMO.

That said – the choices of all three couples could also be called not really risky, just from a previous scores stand point. All three couples have had at least two dances that were scored lower than the ones they chose to re-do. Their previous scores are shown, below, in parenthesis. Looking at it that way, only Shawn’s choice seems gutsy, seeing as how I doubt Derek’s changing the choreo. I think Mark played it this way one season as well and didn’t get docked the second time around. We’ll see. I expect that Melissa and Kelly are going purely for the perfect 30 (which they will likely get) and Derek/Shawn’s strategy seems to be the same as it’s always been: go for the audience.

Another point…I don’t really believe in coincidences. All three couples chose to do a week 3 dance?? REALLY?? That’s about as coincidental as all three couples choosing AT in Nicole’s season. I wonder…

Good luck to all the couples!!

ETA: The order listed below for Shawn and Melissa is from DWTSGossip on Twitter, NOT our source. Val tweeted that he and Kelly were going first. This order is for Monday night ONLY – most likely. In the past, the Tuesday dance has either been drawn out of a mirrorball OR is just reverse order from Monday night.

ETA2: New interview with Shawn which has this interesting little spoiler in it – don’t think I knew this for sure but had heard it might be the case. From the Des Moines Register:

Q: Let’s talk about your dances this week.

We have six numbers this week. Our freestyle is going to be really exciting, with a lot of cool aspects. I wish I could talk about it, but it has to be a surprise. We’ll also be doing a repeat dance of our favorite dance this season, and I can’t say what that one is, either.

Plus, we’ll be doing a group number with everybody from the season. On Tuesday, we are doing an “instant dance,” which means we’ll draw either samba, cha-cha or jive and have 20 minutes to prepare it. I’m really nervous for that.

ETA3: Someone is dancing to “I’ve had the time of my life.” I tend to think Derek and Shawn, but we’re not positive.

ETA4: Carnival de Paris is another song – could be Melissa with the aerial dancers and all.

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Monday, Good Morning America will go inside the “Dancing with the Stars” final rehearsal. Then on Tuesday, last year’s Dancing With The Stars champ, Donald Driver, will weigh in on Monday night’s finale. Wednesday, Good Morning America will roll out the “red carpet” for the finalists. The finalists will also dance and answer questions from the audience.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

It’s that time again, Dancettes! As the Dancing With The Stars Season 15 All Star finale approaches, I’m more curious than ever to see how astrology might play a part in the outcome of our couples dancing? Maybe astrology has nothing to do with it or maybe it does? Whatever the case, it’s fun to explore why each person might be the way they are and, furthermore, to see how certain signs ‘combined’ together might effect their performances or unions as they have so far on Dancing With The Stars. Let’s get started and feel free to discuss and elaborate for what you know of people with these signs (including of yourself) and how you might think it has or will help the top three finalists win this competition.

First up, Derek Hough and Shawn Johnson:
Derek was born May 17th. He is a Taurus…the sign of the Bull. People born under this sign are steadfast, sensitive, passionate, and strong individuals. Most of the people born under this sign fit the “bull” and “solid like a rock” scenario in some way when it comes to everything that touches them…from work, creativity, personality traits, and relationships. Pretty much nothing can break them and they are able to accomplish and rise above anything even in the worst or most challenging conditions. We see it week after week with Derek on Dancing With The Stars in so many ways. For instance: if all hell breaks loose on the show and/or he disagrees with the Judge’s, etc, who is the quiet, silent one standing strong and steadfast with a piercing gaze through it all like a “true bull” itself? Yep, Derek Hough!

As for Shawn, she was born on January 19th. She is a Capricorn…the sign of the goat, one of which, will slowly, but persistently, climb until they reach the highest place on a mountain. If you know a Capricorn, you know they are one of the most hard working and “work minded” signs in the Zodiac. Even when they are not working, they still are working in some way. This is not a bad thing. It’s just their nature. To ask differently of them, would kill their spirit as well as expecting anything less from them. So, it’s no wonder why this sign has been deemed as one the most successful of the zodiac. Is this sounding familiar to Shawn Johnson yet …an Olympic champion as well as a two time Dancing With The Stars finalist? Read more..

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.

The three finalists have been revealed! Now it’s time to see what’s up for next week’s final dances for what we can find out from their interviews after the results show last night.

In this ET Online interview, Derek and Shawn don’t reveal much. They are excited and just want to head back to the rehearsal studio and start practicing. Tony and Melissa just want to have fun and continue the same trend they’ve been doing all along and come up with the best freestyle. Kelly and Val are so excited. They encourage their fans to keep voting. They just want to have fun.

For more with Derek and Shawn, be sure to visit Pure Derek Hough!! Here is more with Tony & Melissa and Val & Kelly with On The Red Carpet….

Tony isn’t sure about what they will do for their freestyle yet, but, he guarantees they will work the hardest and it will rock! It will also be different and have tricks that have never been seen on the show before. He wants to bring out the “big guns” for this one. He has 15 routines in his head, but, for now he’s just enjoying the moment that they made it.

Val is nervous, but, excited that he and Kelly made it to the finals. He hasn’t come up with a freestyle yet, but, he will by the morning. He will do his best. Kelly says they will put everything out on the table and go for it. She has never easily given up on things. Val names Kelly’s strong suits by saying she has a presence, a story, and a struggle. She’s had her ups and downs and she’s real. She impresses with her raw emotions and interpretations of it. When Kelly is on the dance floor, she really loves to dance. She gives him a big hug at the end.

So, what would you like to see of their freestyles and what do you think they should do or concentrate on?

I hope Derek and Shawn keep going the theatrical and creative route and throw in everything they can including a few gymnastic moves. I hope Tony won’t throw too many tricks in that we see Melissa too pushed like Apolo was this past week in he and Karina’s first dance. Sometimes “less is more”…know what I mean? I hope Val will concentrate on the strong suits he mentioned on Kelly. I think she is a better “slow” dancer. So, I hope he keeps it slow for their freestyle.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud.